PhilosopherJay

Hi Shalak,

Start by reading Hector Avalos' book "The End of Biblical Studies" (or via: amazon.co.uk). It explains how archaeological and scientific discoveries are ignored, actively suppressed or magically changed in the Biblical Studies field to reinforce the dogmas of the faithful.

What you need to understand is that the field of Biblical Studies itself is not an objective and scientific field. Those who devote a considerable amount of their lives to Biblical Studies are those people most enthusiastic about it. Almost all are ordained priests of one church or another. They may afterwards get degrees in history or archaeology, but only with the intention of using these fields to reinforce their faith in their original mania.

Of course in the field of Biblical Studies there are all sorts of pseudo-scientific studies that may be carried out. You may count the number of times that the letter "alpha" is used in the letters of Paul and compare it to the number of times it is used in the gospel of Matthew and come to the great conclusion that Paul liked using alphas more than Matthew or you may prove the opposite. After this, you may start on the letter "Beta". Or you can continue with your studies on the letter "alpha" and compare Matthew with Luke. You may then go on to do your Ph.D. thesis on the length of words in Paul and Matthew and prove that Paul or Matthew used longer words and therefore was better educated. Thus helping to prove that God did not base his decision on education level when choosing the apostles.

After reading thousands of such articles in the field, if your brain hasn't turned to cream of wheat, you might wonder why these mythological texts are not being treated like all other mythological texts from Greco-Roman society. However, that question would place you outside the limits of the field of Biblical Studies and into the world of History or Humanities. Unfortunately, most Historians or Humanities Professors do not seek confrontation with the herd of administrators who control the education profession and are reluctant to treat Christian Mythology in depth, leaving it to grace and control of the theologians in the Biblical Studies departments.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Juststeve

Shalak:

I would recommend you read some of what John Dominic Crossan has written. He may not meet the criteria of atheism impo9rtant to members of this forum but he still may have some interesting ideas. I think he does anyhow.

Steve

Horatio Parker

I second Price.

I haven't yet seen his PNNT, but "Deconstructing Jesus" was fascinating.

Price is a former Baptist fundie minister, member of the Jesus Seminar, now more or less a myther, but he considers the myths beautiful and still attends church. He has a concept called "the sin of faith":

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.c..._sin_faith.htm

There's a fair amount of Price on youtube as well.

Thomas L. Thompson has done much work to show that the NT is a rewrite of ancient near eastern and Egyptian literary tropes. I find him much harder to read than Price, not as accessible, not a storyteller.

shalak

So far I have added The End of Biblical Studies + and the Pre-Nicene NT to my book list to investigate. I also put the name of John Dominic Cossan down so i can look at him as well. Any other suggestions? By the way I think I remember hearing some negativity towards K. A. Kitchen somewhere either on this forum or another. Besides him being a believer what is the opposition to him exactly?

Toto

Kitchen is an Egyptologist. He is a "maximalist" in the debate on the Hebrew Scriptures. There is a review here.

Evangelicals get very upset with Ehrman, and have even started an Ehrman Project to try to refute him. But his scholarship is sound.

Kitchen has the style of an academic, but not the objectivity.

A lot of the recent evangelical scholars are not just preaching, but you need to be aware of their biases.

Toto

Crossan is a former Jesuit priest and might as well be an atheist. His a member of the Jesus Seminar, and views Jesus as a revolutionary peasant.

ApostateAbe

I don't recommend Price. He is not sufficiently discriminating with the hypotheses that he puts on the table, and he gives consideration to every improbable notion as long as it is skeptical (he markets to an audience of skeptics). For a good introduction to a historical topic, you kinda need to be realistic and say, "These ideas are more probable than these other ideas." That was my impression when I read Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. If you are experienced in the subject, then maybe The Pre-Nicene New Testament is a good read, but I don't know. One way or the other, I think we need to discriminate, and one of the quick ways to discriminate is to find out if the author makes his or her living by being employed at an accredited university or if he or she makes his or her living by marketing books to a niche audience, and it looks as though Robert Price does the latter, not the former.

ApostateAbe

Richard Carrier spoke at length about his opinions of Robert Price on the Infidel Guy radio show some time ago. He has positive things to say, but also some negative things, and the negative opinions match my own. Here is a transcript of that:
N/A

Toto

Abe has his own unique biases.

Robert M Price has held academic appointments until the recent economic recession. He does not write for a "niche" audience.

ApostateAbe

Yeah, I am not asking anyone to take my word for it, because we are all biased. I am not aware of Robert Price having ever been employed at an accredited university, so maybe you can correct me on that point? Also, who do you think his audience would be if not almost exclusively an audience of religious skeptics?